A Genuine Mistake

by Ted Tayler

  “That was how Gerry behaved,” said Rachel. “What was in the past stayed in the past. I never felt able to raise the subject of Evelyn’s lingering presence in the house. The layout of the rooms, the style of decoration all bear the stamp of a well-established, successful wildlife photographer. It was classy ten, fifteen years ago, but it’s dated now. Gerry and the boys preferred to wrap themselves in Evelyn’s creation. It helped keep her alive. Although Gerry loved me, and the boys accepted me, I could never make the place my own.”

  “Why didn’t you sell up and move?” asked Luke. “It’s too big. Sean and Byron will never come back here to live full time.”

  Rachel looked at Gus.

  “You can tell him.”

  “I haven’t left my bungalow, have I, Luke? Even though Suzie has moved in, there’s no question of us going anywhere either. Ms Cummins has stayed here because the location suits her personal trainer career. Also, she feels a duty to Sean and Byron to keep the house until they decide to get their own homes. Most of all, it’s because every room that she utilises in the house helps her keep Gerry’s memory alive.”

  Luke nodded. Rachel Cummins gave Gus a brief smile.

  “If we thought something in Evelyn’s studio might offer a clue to Gerry’s murder, would you let us have the key?” Luke asked.

  “I’ll fetch the key from the kitchen,” said Rachel, “but I won’t go in with you if you don’t mind. It doesn’t feel right.”

  Gus stayed on the landing while Luke and Rachel went downstairs.

  Why had he felt the need to unload his personal experiences on Rachel Cummins? In front of Luke as well? Was it this place? Gus shook himself. Just because the original building Gerry Hogan had transformed had stood for four centuries, it didn’t mean it held magical properties.

  Luke trotted upstairs with the key a minute later.

  “It’s okay, Luke, no rush,” said Gus.

  “That was for Rachel’s benefit, guv. In case she asked again if I wanted to join one of her classes.”

  “Do you expect to find anything in here?”

  “It would be daft not to look, guv.”

  Luke opened the door, and he and Gus stepped inside. Luke closed the door behind them.

  The room was light and bright, with windows on two sides. Examples of Evelyn’s work, her certificates, and her and Gerry’s wedding photographs covered the wall adjoining Sean’s bedroom.

  “It smells musty in here, guv,” said Luke. “I think that confirms nobody has been here for the last six years.”

  “A shame,” said Gus, “because it’s a splendid room for a photographer or an artist. What else did Evelyn keep here, I wonder?”

  Luke started opening drawers on filing cabinets. Gus sat at Evelyn’s desk and rifled through letters and papers.

  “No sign of a diary or letters that Evelyn kept from Gerry,” said Gus.

  “We’ve only got Rachel’s word that Gerry didn’t remove stuff from Evelyn’s belongings before she appeared on the scene,” said Luke. “If we found just one item to take with us for our meetings with Sean and Byron, it could help.”

  “What did she keep in the filing cabinets?” asked Gus.

  “Correspondence with magazines and newspapers around the world, guv. Folders filled with photographs that Evelyn published over the years. She won or got nominated for many more awards than you would think by looking around the room. She hung her certificates on the wall, but not her awards. I wonder why?”

  “Many people are modest about their accomplishments, Luke,” said Gus. “The ones who make the most noise are usually the ones that have got most to be modest about.”

  “We didn’t enter the main bedroom,” said Luke. “I remember seeing photos downstairs of Gerry, Evelyn, and the boys when they were young. Perhaps an album covering the births and the boys as toddlers would be along the corridor?”

  “Take a quick look, but be quiet, Luke. We’re in danger of outstaying our welcome. Everything is here is what I expected to find. If Evelyn had secrets hidden in a diary, she must have taken them with her to Australia. When the police recovered her personal items from the accident or her rented room, they might have dropped them off at her parents before Gerry flew out.”

  Luke padded along the corridor as quietly as he could and returned a few minutes later.

  “I found several photo frames in a drawer that probably stood on the dressing table in the past, guv,” said Luke. “There was a large album chronicling the first eighteen months to two years for each son.”

  “Is that normal?” asked Gus.

  “I would say so, guv. I reckon typical behaviour is for parents to capture every new event in their child’s life, and then year on year it becomes more of a chore, and later on, there are fewer landmarks to immortalise in living colour.”

  “Here’s Luke with his first car, his first pint, and his first summons,” said Gus. “Taken shortly after his seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth birthdays. I didn’t realise what joys I’d missed.”

  “Did you find a clue while I was gone, guv?”

  “A letter from a wildlife conservation charity based in New South Wales offering Evelyn a senior position. The lure of the wild might have been greater than Gerry thought. He was happy for Evelyn to return to Australia for a month to carry out this commission at the Macquarie Pass National Park. Maybe she was planning on staying there for good.”

  “Would Nick Barrett be likely to have got wind of that?” asked Luke.

  “Not sure,” said Gus. “It’s too late to get Neil to ask him this morning. We can ask the sons whether they knew that their mother had itchy feet. They might have sensed the distance growing between their parents. They were only eight and six, so they were too young to spot such things, though.”

  “It’s something new, guv,” said Luke. “There’s been no sign there was tension in the marriage. How could it relate to what happened in 2012?”

  “I’m just checking the letter heading, Luke,” said Gus. “The date of the job offer precedes the trip by three months. Maybe the National Park retrospective was Evelyn’s way of getting the itch out of her system. I can’t find a copy of a letter accepting or rejecting the job offer here.”

  “I’ll make a note of the details, guv. If the charity is still functioning, we can ask which way Evelyn Hogan jumped. How it could have any link to Gerry’s murder, I can’t fathom.”

  “We’re swimming in treacle,” said Gus. “Come on, let’s get out of here. If we stay any longer, our host will wonder if we’re angling for a lunch invite.”

  “Don’t mention food, guv,” said Luke. “I’m feeling peckish.”

  “I’ll drive back via Bradford Road and find County Way, Luke.”

  “Gregg’s, guv?”

  “Our warm ovens are waiting for you, Luke. You know it makes sense.”

  “We can enjoy our hot snack on the drive back to the office, and Neil won’t be any the wiser.”

  “He shouldn’t back yet, Luke. His meeting with Nick Barrett wasn’t until eleven-thirty.”

  They walked downstairs. Luke tapped on the kitchen door to return the door key.

  “Did you find anything useful?” asked Rachel.

  “Too early to tell yet, Ms Cummins,” said Gus.

  “It was good to meet you, Mr Freeman,” said Rachel, “I hope you finally find Gerry’s killer.”

  “It won’t be for lack of trying, Ms Cummins,” said Gus.

  Gus and Luke walked to the car.

  “Will we need to come back, guv?” asked Luke.

  “I can’t think why except to tell Rachel we know who killed Gerry and why.”

  “Are we any closer to finding that person, guv?” asked Luke.

  “I’m not even sure we’re moving in the right direction, Luke. We could be getting further away. When you pop in to pick up our sausage rolls, grab a few napkins, could you, please?”

  “Got it, guv. We don’t want to get back to the office with greasy finger
s.”

  “I’m not worried about that, Luke,” said Gus. “I don’t want flaky pastry over the upholstery in the Focus.”

  Thirty minutes later, they were in the lift heading for the office. Blessing and Lydia looked up when the lift doors opened. Alex was nowhere in sight.

  “Welcome back, guv,” said Lydia. “Rewarding trip?”

  “We picked up a few crumbs,” said Luke.

  “Where’s Alex?” asked Gus.

  “Restroom, guv,” said Blessing. “It’s his turn to make the coffees. We were just breaking for lunch. Shall I ask him to fetch two more coffees?”

  Gus nodded and sank into his chair. Luke was right; they had only got a few scraps of information this morning. He wanted to take his time drinking this coffee and ponder what it meant.

  Rachel Cummins didn’t have twenty-twenty vision.

  If someone had parked a motorcycle near the gateway, she might not have noticed it.

  Was the motorcycle even relevant? The neighbour couldn’t swear to the time he’d heard it pass his house. Although, he said it followed a sound like a backfire from a car or motorcycle.

  What significance should they put on the lighting system in several of the rooms? Maybe the various additions to the house’s floor area increased the chances that a doorbell or a phone ringing in the distant hallway could get missed.

  What about the red light? Did that suggest Gerry Hogan had enemies? Or was he just taking sensible precautions to protect his family and their property? Thieves were more likely to attack a place that flaunted the trappings of wealth.

  Another thing they learned was that Rachel used music in her training sessions. The amber warning light alerted her to the doorbell, but her headphones and the backing track would have masked the sound of the gunshot whenever it occurred.

  Only when she was wrapping up her practice session and putting away her kit, did she hear Sean call for his father. Rachel had removed the headphones by a quarter to seven.

  The letter to Evelyn Hogan from the charity had been in the house for three months. Did she show it to Gerry? Was he aware that Evelyn had received the job offer?

  “A penny for them, guv,” said Lydia.

  “We’ve only spoken to two people so far,” said Gus. “Nick Barrett and Rachel Cummins. Nick remembers Gerry Hogan as an honest, honourable family man with no enemies. Rachel loved him for five years and can’t move on from an enormous house filled with memories of Gerry and his late wife, Evelyn. We can’t shake their stories so far. The few vague anomalies we’ve got from their interviews don’t point me in any particular direction.”

  “Can I give you my take on this case, guv?” said Alex.

  “Please do,” said Gus.

  “The murder file gives us details on what the investigation believed were the most significant events during Gerry Hogan’s life. After school and university, he went to Australia with Nick Barrett. What made that trip significant?”

  “Gerry met Evelyn, they fell in love, and she flew from the other side of the world to be with him,” said Blessing. “How romantic that was. They got married soon after.”

  “What was his next significant life event?” asked Alex.

  “Gerry set up his own business, they moved to Trowle Common, and started a family,” said Lydia.

  “So, they married in 1982, moved to Trowle Common in 1992,” said Alex. “That’s ten years with no apparent drama. The boys arrived in 1994 and 1996, then at the start of 2002, Evelyn gets killed on a business trip to New South Wales.”

  “We can discount Evelyn’s death as a tragic accident,” said Luke. “Another decade passed without signs that suggest Gerry had someone plucking up the courage to kill him,” said Luke. “What are you driving at, Alex?”

  “If Gerry’s murder had taken place in the early Eighties, the trip to Australia would have made perfect sense as the catalyst for what happened. How can it have impacted on a murder that took place in 2012?”

  “We’ve queried that more than once already,” said Blessing.

  “Move forward another ten years,” said Alex. “The murder file didn’t flag any event between 1982 and 1992 as being significant enough to contact people to interview. What if Gerry had got killed during that time?”

  “The police would have looked closer at the time Gerry spent working with Hargreaves Lansdown,” said Gus. “I’ll ask John Kirkpatrick whether they checked for problems with clients.”

  “The timing of the murder has to be significant, guv,” said Alex. “The gap year trip and the period before Gerry Hogan became his own boss don’t fit with May 2012. The only period left is between Evelyn’s accident and the night of his death. Surely, the answer must lie there?”

  “Are we missing a significant event in Gerry Hogan’s life?” asked Lydia.

  “He met Rachel Cummins, fell in love, and they lived together happily for five years,” said Blessing. “I can’t see how that could have been the catalyst for murder.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Neil Davis had left the Old Police Station office at five to eleven. He hoped there would be a handful of vacant parking spaces in the station car park when he reached Bradford-on-Avon. He could still make Nick Barrett’s office by half-past the hour.

  Neil didn’t expect a warm reception from the resident pit-bulls, Daphne and Suzanne, but at least they recognised him when he stepped inside the hallway and didn’t keep him hanging around. They buzzed him straight through.

  “Good morning, DS Davis,” said Nick Barrett. “I’ve been considering what you asked for on the phone. I need to put on my thinking cap, don’t I? You realise that asking a chap to cast his mind back thirty years to one particular night is a chore?”

  “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, sir,” said Neil. “We need to check that none of the nights Gerry Hogan spent in someone else’s bed didn’t lead to his murder. After we’ve done that, we can move on to another period in his life to search for what provoked the actions of the man on the doorstep.”

  “I can see the logic behind that, DS Davis,” said Nick Barrett. “If only it were elementary.”

  “Why not start from when you landed in Australia, sir,” said Neil. “Or did Gerry Hogan join the Mile High Club on the flight from Singapore?”

  “Gerry and I both spent most of that journey sleeping,” said Nick. “After we landed in Darwin, we stayed up as late as we could before crashing at our digs and didn’t venture far until we got acclimatised.”

  “Jet lag?” asked Neil.

  “Everybody reacts differently,” said Nick. “We started setting our body clock to our destination time a day or two before we drove to Heathrow. We cut out the alcohol, drank plenty of water, ate in moderation, and slept between London and Singapore when we could. After the flight delay that I mentioned, we were too tired to stick to the system. I was asleep before the safety checks.”

  “So, you spent the first few days in the city?”

  “You won’t remember Cyclone Tracy. It was before you were born,” said Nick. “That cyclone flattened Darwin back in 1974. So, when we got there in 1981, they hadn’t long finished rebuilding it. The city itself isn’t much to write home about, but the nearby attractions more than compensate. One of the early trips we made was to a local cove where we saw our first saltwater crocodiles. That was an experience for two lads from Bradford-on-Avon, I can tell you. We travelled to and from the cove in a combi-van. I soon lost count of the number of trips we made in one of those. There were six of us altogether, plus our driver. Gerry and me, a guy from Cardiff and his girlfriend from our digs, plus two girls we collected from a hostel half a mile away.”

  “It didn’t take long for Gerry to score after he recovered from jet lag, then?” said Neil.

  “That was typical of Gerry. We spent the day at the cove, and when we made the return journey, he sat next to the prettiest girl of the pair. The other girl sat in the spare seat next to the driv
er. I knew it would not be my lucky day. Gerry persuaded the girls to join us for a drink in the Victoria Hotel. They had finished rebuilding that place four years earlier. The Vic was an institution in Darwin, one of its oldest watering-holes. The food was excellent too. We had showered, changed, and reached the bar at eight. The girls didn’t make it until nine.”

  “The other girl was reluctant,” said Neil. “I remember that experience. Can you remember their names or where they came from?”

  “What I remember most was that they were on the last leg of their trip. Those two girls flew out of Darwin two days after we met. Although nothing happened for me on that brief encounter, it was great to meet them. They had been to Uluru, Alice Springs, the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, and a couple more places we had on our wish list. I spent the evening asking Bronwen where the best hostels were and which tourist spots were worth visiting. Gerry and Cat left us to visit another well-known bar on Cavanaugh Street. We never saw them again before closing time. I walked Bronwen back to their hostel; she shook my hand and dashed inside. I was tipsy and staggered the half-mile to our digs and fell asleep without getting undressed. Gerry was in the other bed when I woke up, but I had no clue what time he’d got in.”

  “Bronwen and Cat,” said Neil, “where were they from, can you remember?”

  “Bronwen came from a seaside resort near Tenby,” said Nick. “Her accent was stronger than the couple from Cardiff. Bronwen didn’t recognise them as Welsh, anyway. She termed them as quasi-English and ignored them while we were at the cove. Bronwen’s family spoke Welsh and went to chapel every Sunday. No wonder I only got a handshake.”